Afshan Subohi, Nilesh Mishra to get 1st KCK International Award

New Delhi, Mar 12 (UNI) Journalists from Pakistan's Dawn and the Hindustan Times were jointly conferred the first K C Kulish International Award, at a function this evening.

Afshan Subohi of the 'The Dawn' newspaper and Mr Nilesh Mishra of Hindustan Times received the award.

While Mr Subodhi and her team received the honour for the series ''Why does corporate Pakistan detest democracy,'' Mr Mishra and his team got the award for ''The new Muslim series: from Masjid to market a journey.'' The award carrying the prize money of USD 11,000 instituted by the Rajasthan Patrika group of newspapers in the memory of its founder Karpoor Chandra Kulish, acknowledges the contribution of journalists whose news stories influenced change in the lives of people. Former President A P J Abdul Kalam presented the awards to the winners.

Ten other works have been selected for the merit award. One of which went to Tony Carnie and his team for ''South Africa's poisonous work places'' for The Mercury, South Africa but he was not present in the function.

''India besieges series:one in every six Indians lives under insurgency'' by Yashwant Raj and ''War torn: a series on the plight of war martyr families'' by Kuldeep Maan and his team(Chandigarh), both from from Hindustan Times, 'Save the girl child' by Radha Sharma and her team, the Times of India, Ahmedabad, ''HIV/Aids awareness campaign'' by Lakhyajit Gohain and his team for Dainik Janambhumi, Guwahati, ''Badhal Bundelkhand'' by Pratap Samvanshi and his team of Amar Ujala, Kanpur and The Statesman's ''The ugly truth in Nandigram'' by Sukumar Mitra are among others who would get the merit awards.

Jay Singh Rawat of Uttar Ujala, Dehradun will get the merit award for his work "Slow pace of development in ''Uttrakhand: Resulting hardship of people'' and Reji Joseph of Rashtra Deepika daily, Kerala, will recieve it for ''Weeping faces, frozen mind'' and Hitesh Raviya of 'Saurashtra Aaspass', will be honoured for ''Jiske jeevan me andhera hai''.

Felicitating the winners, Dr Kalam said Journalists today should follow the path of Karpoor Chandra Kulish, who was known for fearless journalism and was a multi-faceted personality.

He said, ''True journalism vitalises the nation and there is no room for sensation.'' Urging journalists not to indulge in sensationalism he said it is just a sheer waste of time.